Monday, September 10, 2007

OK, OK, one more

I realize, with some disappointment, that the bulk of my journal entries -- especially the entries that you like to read (i.e., the ones that get comments) are one of three types:  vacation posts, me being angry at morons posts, or me being a moron posts.  I'll let you figure out which one this is.

Roomba hasn't been working lately.  Well, no, he's been working, but only for 20 minutes at a time.  He returns to his home base charging pad after only 20 minutes out, thinking he's low on battery.  He probably is.  He'll sit there charging for 20 minutes and think he's got a full charge.  He doesn't.  I can't convince him that he needs to charge for longer.

Apparently, I can.  The problem arises with Roombas often enough that the Roomba website has a method for resolving the problem.  It involves "resetting" the Roomba charging system (pulling the battery out and holding down "power" for five seconds.  Which feels pretty stupid because when there's no battery in there, what the heck good is holding down the button going to do?).  Then you plug the charger into the Roomba and let it charge for three days.  Then you run the Roomba down to no juice at all, and repeat this entire process a few times.

Note that I said "plug the charger into the Roomba."  It specifically says not to charge the Roomba via the home base.

Well, hell.  Where on earth did I leave Roomba's charger?

I'm pretty sure it's in the closet.  I kept the original box Roomba came in, and any leftover peripherals they gave me would still be in the box in the closet.  I look in the closet.  No Roomba box.

Well.  Maybe it's in my storage cage.  I make plans to go to the storage cage over the weekend.

Go to the cage on Sunday.  Before going, I check the storage box in my garage, just in case.  No Roomba box.  I go to the cage.  I get into the cage (which is surprisingly full -- I have to rearrange stuff to throw in a few more items, and it dawns on me that even if I did see Roomba's box in here, I'd never get it out).  Roomba's box is not here.

Poop.

I go home.  Check the closet again.  Oh look, Roomba's box!

I open the box.  It's empty.  Insert confused face here.

OK.  I keep Roomba's remote control in my nightstand drawer.  Maybe I threw the direct charger in there.  I go to the nightstand drawer.  Various other chargers (one for digital camera batteries for a camera I haven't used in about a decade) but no Roomba charger.  Confused face gets more puzzled.  I decide to look in Roomba's manual to see a picture of the charger, in the hopes that maybe knowing what it is I'm looking for will refresh my memory.

I look at the diagram.  It shows two pictures -- one has the charger plugged directly into the Roomba, and the other has the charger plugged into the home base

Oh.  The charger has been sitting in my bedroom all along, in plain sight, attached to the home base.

Oops.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

The trials and tribulations of an early adopter. Life on the bleeding edge, chickie -- what a rush!